


hold me like i am your breath

by peterspajamas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cas is alive though!, Character Study, Crying Dean Winchester, Dean's Top 13 Zepp Traxx Mixtape, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Quote: I'm always happy to bleed for the Winchesters. (Supernatural), almost?, dean loves him backkkk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 15:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30007275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterspajamas/pseuds/peterspajamas
Summary: Dean is on his way to leave a mixtape and a picture of Castiel on the grounds of the Apocalypse.(or, set after s15e19, Dean is trying to bury a few reminders of Cas)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 15





	hold me like i am your breath

**Author's Note:**

> posted this on my tumblr too, stillbeautifulstillcastiel!! check it out!

Dean enters the road with a sluggish heat in his heart, pounding away. His chest is something like sunlight through a magnifying glass, and feverish. He feels every step, the muscles bunching under him. They’re tense. Sore. It feels like he’s been running for hours. He hasn’t- hasn’t run a step. 

He doesn’t care about these jeans, and even if he did, it’s easy to sink to his knees. 

That’s what he does, he gets right on the ground, one of his nails brushing dirt from his forearm. If he wasn’t absolutely sure he was alive- how’s he hurt this much, if he’s not? Dead people don’t have sore muscles- he would think that he is suspended in heaven. 

There is nothing out here. It’s surrounded by air so clean he doesn’t even know he’s breathing. The scene around him is a statue, built for him to look at. Motion, life, all gone. Technically Jack brought them all back-

A cough rises in his chest and he forgets about all of that. He’s brought stuff. Stuff to summon a crossroads demon, but he really doesn’t think one will show up. He leaves the yarrow in his pocket for now, what’s a few more moments of reminiscing? 

Dean, he still has Cas’s favorite things. Does belonging to an angel make them holy? Does the old ownership make it sacred? When someone else, someone who is clean and neutral of Cas, comes by, will they get a blessing? Will they feel the stinging blow of grief that Dean is struck over and over by, or will they see a little tape by the side of the road and not think twice? Dean’s grief has always been obsessive, never lonely. 

That makes his breath catch. Dean’s skin tingles as he lays out the artifacts of an angel. 

The Impala is halfway off the road, and Dean’s back is brushing a corn plant. Night weeps on him, stars bright. The cove of uncertainty and Midwestern horror clings to him. Sticks like burrs. He has every single memory possible to do with fields like this, and yet, he has never once visited this one. 

Dean swallows, mouth dry, and puts out a picture of Cas smiling. He had a polaroid. Polaroid camera, so there are a few vignettes of him lying around that no one’s going to miss. Or, what does he know? Sam probably has his own hoarded, he was the one who gave it to Cas. 

Dean wishes he’d given more to Cas over the years. In hindsight, he made a mistake there. Made a lot of mistakes. Obviously. But with Cas, he knows he made a mistake when he went cold. He’s a bastard for it, and it won’t leave his head, the stilted, sometimes for granted way he would treat Cas. 

In a field in Kansas, he’s trying to wrap his head around the fact that Cas loved him, bled for him, always motherfucking bled for him, slashing his body open just to get drops of grace to rain on Dean. He feels bloated, feverish, broken. 

The night crushes. He doesn’t bother saving his knees from the dirt, he welcomes it more than anything. With a polaroid and a mixtape in front of him, Dean puts his hands together. 

“Hi.” He sounds small. His voice cracks. 

“Hi, Cas. I’m praying one last time, bud-” Dean can’t finish that part. “I’m praying one last time, I’m going to leave these here for you. Not- not here, somewhere cleaner, better. I just couldn’t drive anymore. Hate driving,” Dean says, all raw. 

“I think…” he begins, slow, “I think about what you said to me every day, you know? I think about you every day, but I dream that speech, too, Cas.” He squints into the soundless night. “I dream of you. I hope that somewhere up there, they’re letting you take charge.” 

Dean doesn’t ask whether or not Cas is giving him these dreams. If it’s Cas hammering that speech into his head, a kind of punishment. Dean’s hand opens and closes, all fragile. He closes his eyes. 

“I think about it,” he whispers, soft, “Bout you. I miss you. I wanted you to come home one last time. With me. I- come home together, you and me.” Dean repeats it. “You and me.” 

There are angel relics out here. Meteorites, rain, things that should be broken but are whole, those are supposed to be miracles. Dean knows better. He gave a mixtape to Cas, it’s a miracle, it’s got a sanctity around it. His head pounds. Heart bleeds. 

Cas, always happy to bleed for the Winchesters. He meant Dean, when he said that. 

He takes one hand, smoothing it over his hair, and backs away. “This is precious, isn’t it?” he asks, looking at the mixtape’s writing, putting one hand on his hot forehead. “I’m really precious, hoping you’ll send down some more memories.” He brushes off the mixtape. The waning grief springs back up and he puts his hand on his chest. It pounds. 

On the hood of the car, there goes another meaningless expression of emotion, the silent but still too loud clatter of plastic, canned music. Someday... 

One last time, he second guesses himself with Cas. 

He can burn the picture, save it, swallow his misgivings and leave it. Decisions, in the aftermath, are Jupiter. 

It’s all Cas. It’s all his trenchcoat, his soft smile, his eyes that have memories in them, and in that picture, he has one hand resting on Dean’s cup of coffee. What is Dean even doing out here? He came out, half formed hopes to visit the ends of the Earth, flick the polaroid down there and toss the mixtape after it. The Cage, or the ocean, the neverending road that wraps him around in knots. Dean is beaten dead, holding in his sobs without even trying. 

He kicks some dirt over Cas’ face. He has more pictures. 

But, hey, useless as ever, Dean can’t move. He can’t do anything. He can’t even close his eyes. Sam is off at the bunker, pretending to be happy when he’s been a mangled whisper of himself for years. Dean can’t even summon up the energy to make brittle jokes or drink in that place. He’s lost everything. 

He’s never been sure, over the years, what’s made him keep on. Courage, and mostly the urge to get to the ending, that life he’ll never have but always know. Is that- is that Cas, now? He has ceased to need him. Dean rocks forward, trying to keep Jupiter at bay, but he is close as hell. Hands are shaking.

He sucks on his bottom lip. “Love you too.” 

A hot tear trembles at the corner of his eye. 

The silence blanketing his wounded burial ground stops. Music starts. The Rain Song. Dean is hearing the Rain Song. His head tips back, the rhythm hitting him solidly, creaky and almost shapeless. The speakers don’t do it justice. He had this song on the mixtape. The Rain Song. A love song. 

And he sobs, snot, tears, spit in his mouth. That first one turns into shivers, which turns into more tears, as he twists around. The headlights of his car flicker on. 

He is standing there, only in silhouette. Dean knows him. The light comes off of him, doesn’t touch Dean, but he draws closer, closer, scared to touch. 

He came out here to pray, to bury things. His voice is hoarse. 

“Cas?”

**Author's Note:**

> comments n kudos are always always welcome <3


End file.
